VHI 2017 – Team Manager’s Report

Until I looked back on my records, I hadn’t realised due to World Champs 2015, the VHI hadn’t been held in Scotland since 2011. With Scotland as hosts, it is always one of the toughest challenges for England, as the Scots are generally able to field their strongest team and the events are held on challenging technical terrain. I am delighted to say that the England team rose to the challenge and we won all three trophies.

The relay race was staged first at Auchernack & Balliefurth a narrow area bounded by the River Spey to the west and the B970 to the east. There was excellent contour detail with birch woodland and open areas and coniferous forest for the longer courses. Jess Tullie had planned some good courses within the constraints of the terrain and best of all had set the arena in a lovely open area with good visibility for spectators of runners coming into and away from the spectator control and into the finish. The setting certainly added greatly to the atmosphere.

There were some excellent strong relay runs from all our teams. As things stand, the results show that England finished in MWM race in positions 3, 4, 5, and 6 and on the WMW half of the competition all the teams managed to be one position ahead of the Scots with England finishing in 1, 3, 5 and 7.

However, after the event I noticed that the first Scotland team consisting of Jonathan Musgrave (M55) Kirsty Bryan-Jones (W45) and David Godfree (M40) is probably an illegal team as their handicap points do not add up to 145 which is stipulated in the rules. I have drawn this to the attention of the Scottish manager who may correct the scores at some point. I think it is an easy mistake to make as, also according to the rules, any athlete is entitled to ‘run up’ as an individual and then run in BOF age class in the relay. Kirsty Bryan- Jones ran as W40 in the individual but her BOF age is W45.

The first MWM team to finish (and probably 2nd overall) was Steve Whitehead, Amanda Crawshaw and Nick Barrable. Very close behind were Adrian Pickles, Lesley Ross and Duncan Archer, and just behind them Keith Tonkin, Sara Campbell and Darrell High, followed a few minutes behind by Rob Parkinson, Jane Morgan and Richard Robinson.

Sadly the weather changed from glorious sunshine on Saturday to overcast and drizzle that soon became rain for Sunday’s individual race. All the team were highly focussed on the task ahead and as a result there were some outstanding performances.

No one mispunched, and Jackie Hallett struggled on through an on-course injury to get round and add valuable points.

According to official results:

Class

ENG

SCO

WAL

IRL

Relay

114

108

50

38

Individual

145

132

78

62

Total

259

240

128

100

As to the team, England included one runner who had not run for any England team before: Darrell High, who made a significant contribution in both the relay and the individual races.

Our thanks go to Anne Hickling, overall organiser, and all the other event organisers, planners, controllers and helpers for putting on the events and welcoming us so warmly.

In addition thanks to all the England team. Everyone’s professional approach and focus as well as team spirit all contribute to a great weekend of competition. I appreciate the effort everyone makes to get to the competition and best of all delivering some outstanding performances so that the three trophies remain once again with England.